Posted
by
kdawson
on Thursday November 01, 2007 @08:17AM
from the nobody-uses-linux-anyway dept.

whoever57 writes "The BBC's head of technology denied rumors that a secret deal with Microsoft was behind the XP-only launch of the BBC's iPlayer. According to Ashley Highfield, the reason that the player only supports Windows XP is that only a small number of Linux visitors have come to the BBC's website. Why he would expect a large number of Linux-based visitors to the site when the media downloads are Windows XP only is not clear. He also thinks that 'Launching a software service to every platform simultaneously would have been launch suicide,' despite the example of many major sites that support Linux (even if this is through the closed-source flash player)."

The interesting bit here is the Beeb isn't really a commercial organization. They're a public entity which is strictly required [wikipedia.org] to keep itself free of commercial and political influence.

It's clearly either a made up figure or a case of very creative use of statistics. He would have been better off with a figure like 50,000 - it's surprisingly small but it's not so easy to prove that it's just plain wrong.

It would be interesting to do a survey of Linux users to see how many regularly use bbc.co.uk. I suspect the figure would be well up in the hundreds of thousands. 400-600 is just beyond belief.

"No matter how much you guys like Linux and hate Windows (or like Windows whatever) on the business side of things it comes down to money and getting a return on your investment. With Linux you do not immediately see a return on your investment."

And that's why Google is over $700 a share now? Because Linux and Linux-support don't provide return on investment?

From the Article "We have 17.1 million users of bbc.co.uk in the UK and, as far as our server logs can make out, 5 per cent of those [use Macs] and around 400 to 600 are Linux users"

Now I imagine that relates to visitors to the rather useless BBC front page, using the same info as used to compile the blog post at http://www.currybet.net/articles/user_agents/2.php> which claims that only 0.41& of BBC visitors use Linux.

I'm a regular visitor to various bits of the BBC web site and I regularly come across other Linux users and just about the one thing we have in common is that we very rarely visit the front page - like most experienced computer users we go straight to sub-site we want.

We have 17.1 million users of bbc.co.uk in the UK and, as far as our server logs can make out, 5 per cent of those [use Macs] and around 400 to 600 are Linux users.

I read news.bbc.co.uk and use Linux. so I am the 0.2% of the users mentioned there:P
There must more than 600, because a "Latest BBC Headlines" bookmark comes "preinstalled" with Firefox.(At least with the ones I've seen)

Yeah, I didn't realise I was in such an elite club of people! I'd be interested to know how these figures where calculated and which sites & sub-domains it covers. Do the Real Server logs support this figure, for example? I know I regularly listen to Radio1 from Ubuntu. The technical help pages for Real Player even has a specific section with upto-date Linux instructions: did they really spend the time writing this for just 600 of us?

Mark Taylor of the UK Open Source Consortium makes the point that the BBC has spent 100 million pounds on the iPlayer project. They're also going broke and will have to sell their flagship London headquarters building for - guess how much?

So, this project has already beggared the BBC. Am I too paranoid in seeing this as the first step in yet another Microsoft 'embrace and extend' play? They've had ambitions to own broadcast TV for ages. If they can prove their DRM works for a major broadcaster over the net, next step will be to DRM the broadcast TV. After that, if your TV doesn't have Windows Inside, you'll be shit out of luck.

Amen to that- I did notice the 'What OS do you use?' poll on the technology website (Bookmarked for convenience)- it was certainly a much larger number than 600 people. Unfortunately I can't find the damn thing- but think 10-25% of 50,000+ voters, if memory serves.

After digging around, this is the best stat I can find - In March 2004, there were 24.5 million licences in force. So the iPlayer has cost every licence holder over 5 pounds - and that includes the huge majority who will never use iPlayer. Let's be optimistic and imagine a takeup of 100,000. That means the iPlayer has a per seat cost of 1,000 pounds. So, two questions: would you pay 1,000 pounds for a copy of this piece of software? And is it fair that non-users are subsidising you to the tune of 995 pounds?

Yet another Freedom of Information request worth making: ask the BBC to break down the money spent on this.